


Sleeping Patterns

by potentiality_26



Category: Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drugs, First Time, M/M, Mind Alterations, Sexual Content, Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Like many men who had been soldiers for at least half as long as they’d been alive, Jim thought of asking for help as weakness.</em>
</p><p>There's something wrong with Jim.  Can Artie figure out what before things get even worse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Patterns

**Author's Note:**

> This includes the old ‘character thinks he’s dreaming’ trope, which in my opinion comes with a measure of dub-con, but it’s only kissing. If anyone has a suggestion for how I should tag/warn for that or if I need to, let me know.

Artie hated hospitals.  He’d been cooped up in one only a few times himself- but what visits he’d made to them in the course of his duties as an agent had left him with a very firm sense that little good ever came of them.

He was learning now that one thing worse than an average hospital was an empty one.

He’d traced Doctor Loveless- who else?- to one such abandoned hospital, and was now combing the rooms for any trace of his quarry- or, more importantly, of his kidnapped partner.

The place was truly deserted. Kept clean to the last, the antiseptic qualities of the place were now marred by a layer of dust over everything. Artie breathed in, choked on it, and swore; there was something about the floors and floors of empty rooms and empty beds that gave him a terrible and inexplicable sense of foreboding. The only sounds were his footsteps- faintly muffled by the dust as though he was walking after a snowfall- as they echoed back at him.

Those, and his shouts.  “Jim?  Jim!”

At this point, Artie had given up on catching Loveless.  If he was still in the building, which Artie doubted, the advance warning of Artie’s arrival would give him time to escape- which hopefully meant that Artie wouldn’t have to tangle with a giant or a team of hired guns or whoever Loveless had on his payroll this time.  He just wanted to find Jim and get out of this awful place.

Finally, on the third floor, Artie heard it, faint but getting stronger: Jim’s voice shouting back for him.

Artie sped up, raising a few more formidable dust clouds before he finally ran across the trail Loveless had left coming in.  He’d arrived with three or four others- it was difficult to tell because they’d been dragging someone else, assumedly Jim- and left with three.  Artie didn’t take more time to investigate the tracks than that, though he did peer around the doorway into the room Jim’s voice was coming from with his hand on his pistol.  That he’d given Loveless plenty of time to get away was still true- but Loveless’ plans didn’t always include behaving sensibly, and having Jim trussed up in some bizarre cage or other was typically his favorite card to play when Artie got there.

But though Jim _was_ trussed up when Artie saw him, he was also alone- unless you counted the dead man lying slumped in the corner.  Artie didn’t have to check to see how he died; there was a gash along his forehead that looked like the result of a collision with the wall behind him at an impressive speed, and Artie was a deal more worried about Jim than a dead man.

Jim was sitting in a deeply uncomfortable-looking high-backed chair with what appeared to be manacles built in to the arms and legs.  These ‘bracelets’ were slightly rusted metal and locked around Jim’s wrists and ankles.

 _He seems fine,_ Artie thought, but looks could be deceiving. There was a small window to one side of him with a sliver of moonlight coming through, and Jim was frowning at it.

Though he hadn’t acknowledged Artie as he came in, Jim said, “Artie?  How long was I-”

“At least six hours- though it could’ve been more.  It took me a little while to realize you’d been kidnapped and not simply… otherwise occupied,” Artie admitted.  He produced a lock pick and knelt beside his partner, working open the cuffs- first the ankles, then at the wrists.  “Why?”

“I don’t remember it.”

Jim sounded strange, and Artie paused in the middle of unlocking the bracelet on the left wrist to look him over.  Jim seemed troubled, which in turn troubled Artie.  He’d found his partner sitting calmly and treating Loveless’ last invention with confident insouciance, and white-faced and so horrified that the first thing he did when he saw Artie was run his hands all over him looking for a bullet wound that never happened, and in all of the million possible states in between- but this was something new.  Artie took a breath and finished with the left wrist, then moved on to the right.  Jim’s pupils were slightly dilated and his eyes followed Artie sluggishly.  _He’s been drugged_ , Artie guessed. _But that isn’t exactly new._   “What _do_ you remember?” he asked.

“I heard Loveless say… something.”  Jim seemed to have to strain to focus, forehead creasing.  "I don't- can't remember what."  Jim looked frustarted and eventually he gave up, shaking his head.  “I heard them leaving- I guess they had a fight.”  Here, Jim nodded to the dead man.  “And then I heard you.”

“Hmm,” Artie replied.  Six hours was an unusually long time for Jim to be under, that much was true- but Artie didn’t think there was any real cause for concern.  Jim had never cared for being drugged; Artie didn’t exactly enjoy it either, but it was different for Jim.  He relied so much on his body and his own physical strength that being laid out by a few drops of liquid or a little cloud of gas never failed to rattle his confidence.  “But you _were_ slipped something beforehand, I assume?”

Jim’s thoughtful frown deepened and he nodded.  There was something boyish and hurt in his expression that made Artie decide not to question his partner further.  He didn’t have to ask where or when or how the beautiful woman came into it- there had obviously been one, and Jim was never at his best when there was.

"That’s it, then,” Artie told him.  Once he had both Jim’s wrists free he examined them for cuts and chafing and then started rubbing life into them with his fingers.

Abruptly, Jim’s breathing started to grow shallow.  Artie looked up at Jim sharply and found that his partner was looking back down at him with eyes even darker than before.

That was strange enough that Artie opened his mouth to ask more questions.

Jim eyes flew wide and he jerked his hand away, standing quickly and without any assistance.  “You’re right,” he said, steadying himself on the chair back.  It was difficult not to notice that Jim had somehow contrived to get as far from Artie as the area around the chair permitted.  Jim gave Artie a tight smile.  “I’m fine.  Let’s just go, huh?  Please?”

Jim said ‘please’ so rarely that hearing it worried Artie more than everything else combined- but it was therefore also a word with which Artie hadn’t had enough practice to defend himself against and he nodded helplessly and followed his partner out of that strange room. 

*   *   *

With a spacious parlor car, a stateroom for the president or some royal guest, and a cell for any prisoners they might transport, having separate bedrooms aboard the train would have been an extravagance for two ex-military men. If Artie truly wanted to be alone he could retreat to the kitchen or to his lab. Likewise, Jim found refuge in the closet where he kept his weaponry and in the stable car with his horse.

It was awkward when one or both of them had a woman over, but Artie was willing to deal with that little inconvenience because sometimes sharing a room with Jim was a practical necessity.  Like many men who had been soldiers for at least half as long as they’d been alive, Jim thought of asking for help as weakness. 

On nights like the one after he found Jim in the hospital, Artie needed to watch his partner very carefully, because Lord knew Jim wouldn’t admit something was wrong.

Jim looked worn out and haggard- which was odd if the man had indeed been in a drugged sleep for six hours.  In fact, Jim seemed wearier than Artie had seen him in a long time, and his stubborn refusal to let Artie help him despite his obvious exhaustion set Artie's teeth on edge. 

He’d walked out of the building alone, shrugging off Artie’s every attempt to assist him, and rode back to the train the same way.  Artie wanted to believe that this meant Jim was indeed fine- but it was all too clear that he wasn’t.  Artie wanted desperately to be able to do _something_ for his partner, but unless Loveless was obliging enough to send them a bottle with a label on it that said, ‘What I drugged Jim West with,’ there would be no way to find out what it was, what its side effects might be, or how long they would last. Artie could only watch and wait. 

They boarded the train from the stable car and as they passed the sleeping compartment Artie spoke up.  “Jim,” he volunteered. “Why don’t you get to bed?  I can handle the reports and the security systems.”  The offer was genuine, of course- but he was surprised when Jim nodded and slid open the door to their shared bedroom.

Artie nodded in return and headed for the parlor, but when he reached the doorway to the next car, he paused and turned around. 

Jim had left the door to the sleeping compartment open and lit a lamp.  On the wall to one side, the golden light cast a very compelling shadow.  Even in silhouette, Jim West was a frighteningly handsome man and, although Artie had decided long ago that seducing his partner would end badly even if he was entirely successful, there was no harm in enjoying the view.  He wasn’t enjoying it much at the moment; Jim undressed slowly, painfully.  As if he were- yes, exhausted, but also as if he’d been very seriously hurt.  With a grimace, Artie continued on his way.

He finished his report in good time and closed up each car, careful not to let his worry for Jim distract him from the important steps of protecting their home.  But when he was finished he returned to the sleeping compartment and immediately all his attention was back on Jim.

Jim was already fast asleep, despite having left the lamp between their beds burning for Artie, and Artie wasn’t surprised.  He’d looked so dead on his feet that Artie didn’t doubt Jim had fallen asleep the second his head hit the pillow- but there was more to it than that.  Apart from the occasional nightmare- and what soldier didn’t suffer those?- Jim slept soundly and easily wherever he was; Artie had always envied him that.  Jim drifted off quickly and woke the same way, seeming entirely rested and lively if he’d slept for eight hours or eight minutes.  On the trail he woke at dawn or earlier; when they were on vacation, he happily slept until twelve.  Artie, on the other hand, suffered terrible bouts of insomnia.  Often, the wearier he was the longer he lay in bed, restless and uncomfortable- and he unfailingly woke up groggy afterwards. 

As a result, Artie had spent many nights lying awake in dark, listening to Jim breathing.  Other times he left the lamp on and sat cross-legged on his bed, watching his partner sleep.

This was what Artie did next.

It was a warm night and Jim was shirtless, a sheet pulled up to his waist.  Artie didn’t let his eye- or his mind- linger on what that sheet might conceal.  He focused on Jim’s chest with as dispassionate an eye as he could manage, looking for cuts, bruises- any sign of torture.  He saw none, which was actually odd- and not just because he’d been so sure Jim was injured in some way.  Jim was never shy about walking around the train half-dressed, and Artie was in turn never shy about looking him over; he knew his partner’s skin better than his own and was fairly unaccustomed to seeing it unmarred.

In all the ways Artie could think to test, Jim was fine- yet Artie couldn’t shake the impression that he was hurting.  Leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes, Artie lost himself in the familiar rhythms of Jim’s breathing.  He sounded fine, normal.  So normal that Artie began to believe that things might really be all right.

Sure tonight was going to be one of those nights he couldn’t get to sleep no matter how long he lay there, Artie blew out the lamp and- in the darkness- padded to his lab to work.  His prototype for a tranquilizer gun was calling.

Probably, he would fall asleep just when things got interesting.

*   *   * 

Artie was searching for his partner.  Again.

He was too worried about Jim to work up any real resentment, but it did occur to him to wish that- just once- Jim wouldn’t go swanning off after criminals without telling anyone where he was headed first.  The man acted like he was invincible, which he obviously wasn’t- how else could their current prey have drugged him and left him for dead by the side of the road like this?  Even the anger behind that thought wasn’t rooted in being left out of the loop half so much as in his profound wish that Jim would just take better care of himself.

The weather had gone from warm, to hot, to blistering with alarming rapidity that year; Artie glanced sidelong at the sun high in the sky over the desert and wished uselessly for a little rain.  There wasn’t a cloud in sight and Artie was worried about Jim lying out there in this heat.

Unfortunately, that same heat prevented Artie from riding too hard.  He set his mare an easy pace, leading Jim’s horse along behind, and traced his way along the wagon tracks he’d found in the dirt, looking for any sign of Jim.

Dust kicked up every now and then, each mouthful reminding Artie of that hospital.  It had been a month since Loveless had captured Jim and did Artie-didn’t-know-what to him for six hours or more, and Artie still grimaced at the memory of the incident.  There had been no noticeable change in Jim’s behavior at first, but over the last couple of missions Artie had begun to notice that Jim was far more careless with his life than usual.  Given how reckless the younger agent had always been, that was saying something.

Take the case they were working now, for example.

He and Jim had been sent west to investigate a number of counterfeit bills which had come into circulation in a few towns, first in California, then Nevada.  As mysteries went, it had proven frighteningly easy to solve: they visited each town in turn and quickly learned that they weren’t the only ones who had done so.  A man called McCoy, who sold love draughts and life-extending elixirs, tonics of every flavor, had passed through them all.  The wealthier townsfolk bought McCoy’s potions- often in large amounts- and were given change in the form counterfeit bills rather than legitimate currency.  It was a neat little scheme, but not difficult to work out- and, as was so often the case, he and Jim and worked it out separately.

Artie had gone to the local sheriff, mapped out the likely route McCoy would take leaving town, and had a posse waiting for him.  McCoy was subsequently arrested and he eventually admitted to Artie that Jim, working alone, had found him first.  Even under threat of bodily harm he had been unable to pinpoint where, exactly, he and Jim had parted company. 

Now, how easy it was for this con artist or that outlaw to get Jim to have a drink with him- or more frequently _her_ \- and then drug it was something Artie considered one of his particular crosses to bear as the more cynical of the two of them, but Artie thought Jim had been getting worse lately.  If he didn’t know better, he would’ve said Jim _wanted_ to get himself poisoned.

Artie had to shake off that disturbing thought more than once.

He’d been riding for several hours when he finally caught sight of a shape, black and blue on the side of the road among the low shrubs and pale dust. Artie rode closer, hoping it was Jim and not some animal.

It was Jim all right; Artie dismounted and hurried to his partner’s side.

He knelt beside Jim and grasped his shoulder, hoping to shake him awake without resorting to a chemical restorative.  Jim woke, but slowly- and when at last he appeared lucid he looked around as if he had no idea where he was.  Jim opened his mouth to say something to Artie, then closed it again and something clicked into place in his eyes.

“Are you all right?” Artie asked, though it seemed a foolish question.  For a split second a look of the most profound horrified misery passed over Jim’s face- and then he rolled over and retched in the dirt.

Jim lay still for a moment and then wiped his mouth.  “I’m fine,” he said, and picked himself up, brushing dust off his jacket and riding chaps.    

“Wait a minute, Jim,” Artie said, uneasy.  “I’m not sure you are.”

“Artie,” Jim warned as he crossed to his horse.  “Leave it.”

That old frustration at Jim’s refusal to accept his assistance, always simmering on Artie’s back burner, had been threatening to bubble over ever since the hospital.  It finally did.  “Jim, I’m your partner.  I’m _supposed_ to help you; it’s what I’m here for.  More than that, I’m your friend.  If something’s the matter, tell me what it is.  You don’t have to hide things from me.”

Jim paused in the process of checking his saddle to make a strange sound.  Artie had to look hard at Jim to even place it, and when he did he still didn’t understand it.  Jim was _laughing_ , bitterly.  He reached toward Artie and then snatched his hand back before it connected.  He shook himself and, without another word, mounted his horse and rode toward the nearest town.  He never checked over his shoulder to see if Artie was behind him.

Once again, Artie realized there was nothing he could do but follow him.

*   *   * 

“How was Mallory?”

Starting powerfully, Artie turned a reproachful gaze on his partner.  Artie was in his nightshirt and in bed, reading a scientific journal and not taking in a word.  He’d been thinking almost wholly about Jim and his behavior in the desert, trying in vain to puzzle it out- and not paying any attention whatsoever to Jim’s breathing.  If he had been, he might’ve noticed before now that, though Jim was lying still, he was in fact awake.  “Fine, Jim,” he said.

“What did she want your help with?”

“Nothing interesting.”  This much was true.  In the afternoon on the day he arrested McCoy, Artie had returned to town with Jim to find a telegram from his cousin Mallory waiting for him.  She’d married an elderly shipping magnate while still a young woman and been widowed very shortly after his will was rewritten to leave her everything he owned.  Cousin Mallory was generally held up as the only member of the Gordon clan to make anything of herself- the golden standard toward which they should all strive.

At any rate, she’d begged for his assistance with what she described as a delicate problem and he- so puzzled by his partner’s behavior when he found him as to be downright irritated by it, and him- had been overjoyed at the reprieve, and Jim had all too eagerly agreed to wrap up the McCoy case on his own and meet Artie at the San Francisco rail yards when it was all over.

That was three days ago and Mallory’s problems- which regarded who to invite to her latest ball, who to hire to cater it, and so forth along those lines- had been deeply refreshing to Artie’s soul, but nothing had been able to help him figure out what was wrong with Jim. 

And he was convinced there was something.

“What about McCoy?” Artie asked, glancing over at his partner.  Jim was curled up and facing the wall, but definitely still awake.  “I don’t suppose you got me a sample of whatever he drugged you with?”

Jim turned over and looked at Artie with unusually wide eyes.  That had clearly touched a nerve.  “Why?” he demanded sharply.

Artie shrugged, trying to appear as uninvested as possible.  “It really laid you out,” he replied.  “I’m curious.”  Both were also true.  Originally, Artie had tried to make himself believe once again that Jim was only troubled by what had happened to him.  Being drugged and left for dead on the side of the road was bound to make any man a bit edgy- but it wasn’t the first time that’d happened to Jim, nor was it likely to be the last.  He’d never had a look like _that_ on his face before.

If Artie closed his eyes, he could still see it.  A look of devastation that defied description.  He’d never seen anything like it- not just on his inexpressive partner’s face, but on that of any human being.  He still didn’t know what to make of it.  

Then there was the way Jim had laughed at him.  Artie wasn’t sure what to make of that, either, but it seemed to him that Jim thought whatever he was carrying would be too much for Artie to handle.  This offended him, to be sure.  He had demons of his own- demons he fancied Jim wouldn’t bear up very well under.  This was an uncharitable thought and he put it away.  But he still had to say, “Jim- if something _is_ the matter-”

“Good night, Artie,” was all Jim said.  He curled up against the wall again.

“Good night, Jim,” Artie replied with a tiny sigh.  He put the journal on the bedside table and leaned over, blowing out the lamp between them.

 _Why indeed_ , Artie thought as he lay in bed waiting for Jim’s breathing to even out.  This wouldn’t be the first time he’d asked Jim to save a sample of this chemical or that compound after one of their enemies had used it- but it was definitely the first time Jim had reacted so violently to the suggestion.  The more he turned over what little he knew in his mind, the more Artie thought there was only one likely explanation.

Though McCoy’s drug had obviously knocked Jim out, it’d done _more_ than that.  Artie theorized that it had made Jim see something- something in his past, perhaps, that he was shy of sharing with Artie, or a vision that wasn’t true, like the one which had once made Jim think he’d killed Artie.  It had clearly disturbed him greatly, whatever it was.

But so long as he refused to talk about it, Artie couldn’t help.

Artie eventually emerged from these thoughts long enough to process the fact that for the first time he could remember, Jim’s breathing _hadn’t_ evened out.  He was still awake.  Artie thought about speaking up again, pushing a little.  Maybe if he was tired enough, Jim would slip up and say whatever it was he was trying to keep quiet.

He was still debating what to say when it happened.

Jim got out of bed and fumbled around a little in the dark until he found what he was looking for-his saddlebags, Artie thought.  He'd seen them on the floor earlier.  Jim rummaged around for a time.  Careful not to let the sound of his own breathing alter or to move too much, Artie watched Jim out of the corner of his eye.  His vision adjusted to the dark enough that he saw what Jim at last produced from his saddlebag: a small vial.  Jim returned to his bed, folding himself into it, and held the vial in his hands for a long time- holding it up to examine it in a silver beam of moonlight.

In that moment, Artie would’ve given anything to be able to see Jim’s face, but it was in shadow.  He felt sure, though, that if he could have seen it he would have understood what happened next.  Jim took the top off the little bottle, sipped from it, and tucked it away in the drawer beside his bed.

Then he lay down and in the next few moments, slept.

Artie considered.  If he’d been asked the moment he first made out the vial in the dark, he’d have said it was one of McCoy’s elixirs.  Could it be the very one that the man had used on Jim?  Artie couldn’t believe it.  Then again, he couldn’t believe that Jim was drugging himself at all.  Why would someone with no history of sleep problems want to?

But if it _was_ the drug McCoy had used on Jim, Artie would have to rethink his theory about the terrible memories or visions it produced.

He lay awake, stunned and confused, for a long time. Jim’s breathing was steady, peaceful, and Artie eventually got up and went to his lab to work. Whatever this was, it was for the moment beyond Artie’s skills of observation.

*   *   * 

Artie crumpled the paper he’d been jotting the telegram down on in his hands; he didn’t need paper to remember _that_.

Jim came in from the next room with a cloth in his hands, rubbing them clean.  Artie could smell traces of oil and powder and he knew Jim had been cleaning a gun.  _A shame_ , he thought.  Jim would probably regret having done so already before the day was through.  “What was that?” Jim asked, nodding to the telegraph machine with a hopeful expression.  It’d been two days since they’d had any orders, and Artie desperately wanted orders.  Wanted to do something other than worry about Jim and flinch away from asking him why he was drugging himself- as he knew he should- like a coward.

“We’re officially on standby,” Artie replied, tartly.

Normally, Artie loved downtime fiercely.  Among other things, it gave him time to repair and rework all the inventions he’d noted problems with in the field but been unable to fix while they were racing from one end of the country to the other.  With the extra incentive of such frequent insomnia, Artie had- if nothing else- a productive few days ahead of him.  But living in such close quarters as they did, it was as ever completely in Jim’s power to make the free time blessing, or a torment.

And Jim hated downtime with an equal passion.  He had so much less to occupy himself; after all, there were only so many times a man could curry his horse, sharpen his knives and polish his firearms before he began to go stir crazy.

The problem was that Jim had been jittery enough over the past few days.  He’d be unbearable now, and there was nothing whatsoever Artie could do about it.  Jim had been pacing constantly, taking up activities only to put them by again seconds later, and losing his temper at the drop of a hat.  Being trapped with Jim in a mood like this would be torture, plain and simple- and yet having told Jim only a week since that he didn’t have to hide his feelings, Artie couldn’t exactly demand that the man bottle himself up more effectively.  Besides being cruel, it would be hypocritical in the extreme.

Artie considered the situation for a moment and then picked up another piece of paper, quickly writing out the names of a few chemical compounds.  “Jim?” he called.

Jim lingered in the doorway with his back to Artie.  “Yes?”

He didn't turn, and unless Artie was much mistaken the hand he lifted to rest on the doorframe above his head was shaking faintly.  Artie shook off the certainty- constantly niggling at the back of his mind- that something was seriously, and perhaps irreparably, wrong with his friend.  “I-” Artie swallowed.  The feeling got harder to shake every time.

“Yes?” Jim repeated, not frustratedly.  Gently.  This was the flipside of Jim’s recent moodiness: now and then, he was kinder, softer, than he’d ever been.  It frightened Artie more than his anger did.

“Why don’t you go into town and pick up a few compounds for me?  I’ve got an experiment I’d like to try and we’re about to have a lot of free time.  I’ll send for you straight away if Richmond changes his mind- otherwise…”  Artie dropped the hint as firmly as he could without suggesting point-blank that Jim find himself some female companionship in town.  He was fond- too fond, perhaps- of the idea that Jim’s trouble might be that easy to solve.  It had been a while since Jim had had that kind of relief and maybe- just maybe- it was that simple.  Artie understood what it was like to get that itch while cooped up on the train and know that what he needed just wasn’t on offer between the two of them.

Oh, sometimes Artie wanted to risk it anyway; sometimes he looked at Jim and he felt an almost irrepressible desire to kiss him.  But he reminded himself of how much trouble it always seemed to get them into- caring about each other.  Jim was the dearest friend he had, and he knew Jim felt the same way.  It would complicate things further- too much further- if they were lovers in the mix.  And the urges got easier to ignore with every passing year. 

Artie watched Jim carefully, and for a split second the set of Jim’s shoulders tightened before it relaxed.  He didn’t smile at Artie, but he did dash away with definite enthusiasm, pausing only to grab the list before sailing out the door.

 _That’s it_ , Artie thought.  It had to be.  He smiled to himself and hoped that Jim would think to return the favor if this standby carried on for too long.

Once Jim was gone, Artie’s mind returned against his better judgment the bottle he’d seen Jim drink from.  He wanted to test its contents- but to do that he’d have to either work up the courage to confront Jim about it, or steal it.  He knew he was unlikely to do the former, and as for the latter… he hadn’t sunk that low.

Yet. 

*   *   *

Artie was already well into his current project- making the perfect chemical combination to fill the tranquilizer darts he’d built- when it occurred to him that he hadn’t brought the compounds he’d asked Jim to buy in town for him into the lab with him.

He kicked himself inwardly.  He never liked stopping in the middle of things.

With a sigh, he stood and moved into the parlor car, hunting for any bottles and bags- or parcels that might contain bottles and bags.  He tried to remember what Jim had been carrying when he came back, and couldn’t.  He hadn’t seen a great deal of Jim- only enough to tell him that Jim didn’t seem much better for his trip to town.  _It was worth a try_ , he’d thought, and left it at that.  Jim had, he recalled, retired to the sleeping compartment early and eaten little.

It seemed to Artie that if the parcels were anywhere, they were in the sleeping compartment- and therein lay the trouble.  He wasn’t sure how quietly he would be able to retrieve them.

Of course, two men with beds in the same room and very different sleeping habits often woke one another accidentally.  Jim had done it to Artie his share of times, to be sure, but Artie never liked waking Jim if he didn’t have to.  It was relatively common knowledge that one didn’t wake a military man unless one was totally confident in one’s ability to wake him quickly and completely and then get out of his way.  Artie was adept at all those things, but they weren’t skills he liked to practice in the dead of night.  Whenever he remembered the way Jim had looked at him the desert and the fact that for all he knew Jim was putting whatever had been in his system then into it every night since, he hated to think of waking Jim at all.

Artie walked through his lab and toward the sleeping compartment, pausing halfway there.  He was sure the best solution would be to go on without them.  He didn’t absolutely need them this particular night, did he?  He told himself that he didn’t- but the mixture had to be very delicate.  It had to work fast and for long enough to be worth the effort. He had a lot of tinkering to do still with the formula and he hated to waste time.

Eventually, he resolved to find the packages as quickly as he could and hope for the best. But it wasn’t to be; he tripped over something in the dark- one of the very parcels he’d been looking for, most likely. From the sound of it, nothing was broken- the noise mostly came from him grabbing a shelf to stop his fall and keep from crushing anything.

Long before he finished righting himself, Artie felt eyes on him.  When he was good and ready, he turned and was amazed to find Jim watching him.

It wasn’t the fact that Jim was watching him which so amazed Artie- he’d sensed that already- it was _how_ Jim was watching him.  The moon that night was full and streaming in through the window nearly as bright as day, and he had the excellent view of his partner’s face that he’d wished for only a few nights ago.  And- _God in heaven_ \- Artie hadn’t known Jim _could_ look as he did then, and he’d fancied he knew every expression of James West’s face.  He looked warm, affectionate, happy.  Artie had never seen his aloof partner’s face so open, or so… the only word Artie could think of was sweet.

“Come back to bed, love.”

Artie blinked rapidly.  Apparently this was an evening for new things.  He’d never heard such a timbre from his friend before- not even speaking to one of his women.  One of whom Artie was forced to conclude a half-asleep Jim was under the impression he was addressing right now.  It was puzzling to say the least- Jim had never showed any sign of sleepwalking or being otherwise active in the night, nor had Artie ever known him to talk in his sleep.  Artie could consider the possible causes of this behavior in more depth later- for the moment, his theories began and ended with that drug he’d seen Jim using, but that theory prompted questions more than it gave answers.

The way Jim looked, the things he was saying…  If there was anything more unlike the look he’d seen in the desert, Artie didn’t know of it.

Artie concluded that this must be what he’d been missing before.  The potion didn’t cause bad dreams as he’d thought- but good ones.  Jim had looked so miserable not because of what he’d seen, but because he’d realized it wasn’t real.  Jim was half asleep now, and still partially in that dream world.  And he had no doubt that Jim would be angry, or at least embarrassed, if he came to himself and realized who he was really talking to.  If Jim fell back into a deeper sleep, however, he might well have forgotten the whole incident by morning.

“Please,” Jim whispered.

And, as before, Artie was reminded of how much trouble he had denying Jim anything when he used that word.  It was doubly hard to refuse him when he asked in such a voice.  He thought it would likely prove to be a mistake, but he went to his partner.

There was some negotiation regarding whose hands and head went where, but less than Artie would have expected.  He fit surprisingly well in Jim’s arms.  Artie would have been lying if he claimed it was unpleasant.  It seemed there was something to be said for being held by someone stronger than he was, and the way that Jim buried his face in the crook of Artie’s neck, hands cupping his shoulder blades, was oddly flattering- or at least, it would have been if Artie thought Jim knew who he was wrapped so fervently around.  But it was also a hot night, and this close Jim felt like a furnace.  Artie worried the man was feverish.

Artie noticed that he’d started to unconsciously stroke Jim’s naked lower back, across which his hand was splayed, and he leashed the impulse fiercely- or, at least, he intended to.  But Jim arched into his touch like a cat.  It made Artie want to jump out of the bed- or rather, the look of pleasure on Jim’s face made Artie hard, and _that_ made him want to jump out of the bed.  He had better control over himself in Jim’s presence than that- or at least he’d thought he had.

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Jim took it further and kissed him, but he was. 

Even if he’d been specifically told to anticipate it, either by some all-knowing deity or perhaps by Jim himself, Artie probably wouldn’t really have been able to prepare himself for Jim’s lips.  They were exactly as soft and supple and talented as a hundred women’s reactions over the years had led him to suspect.  And oh, he'd thought about it- but just as there was a world of difference between having a healthy appreciation for his partner’s mouth and the trouble in had gotten them out of in the past and wanting to taste it himself, there too was a world of difference between imagining what Jim’s lips might be like and actually feeling them. 

For a moment, Jim just pressed against Artie’s mouth, and he sighed quietly when Artie gasped softly and opened for him.  Jim’s tongue slid across his lower lip and then dipped sweetly inside.   The silkiness of his mouth was positively intoxicating. 

It turned out that Artie’s control over himself in Jim’s presence was nonexistent.

He kissed him back, God help him.  Hungrily.  His erection pressed against Jim, but this didn’t seem to register with the man.  Only when Jim’s hands began to slide downward did Artie regain his senses enough to push them away.  He was surprised- surprised and treacherously disappointed- when Jim drew back obediently. 

Kissing Artie once more, lightly, Jim lay back on his pillow, arms still around Artie.  Eventually, Artie heard his breathing even out and he slept.

Carefully, Artie untangled himself and slid out of the bed. Jim didn’t awaken, mercifully, and Artie collected the parcels he came for and went back to his lab, aching. He didn’t touch himself; he ignored his erection stubbornly and went to work, hoping it would help him forget how Jim’s lips felt.

He was still working when the sun rose, and he still hadn’t forgotten.

*   *   * 

She was lovely.  She had big blue eyes and a profusion of dark ringlets tumbling down toward a sizable bust.  Her lips were full and she had a large gap between her front teeth, which Artie had heard somewhere meant that she had a particularly ferocious… appetite.  Jim _had_ decided to return the favor after all, staying on the train in case they got word from Washington while Artie went to town- and Artie had a mind to find out if he’d heard right.  It wasn’t much of an establishment- wasn’t much of a town- but it had the necessary elements, these being liquor and women.  And she was pretty enough; she had freckles all over her face and neck.  He wondered how far down they went.

Those blue eyes glinted at him when he smiled at her.  She crowded him against the bar without a word, the fabric of her pink dress doing little to conceal the hard peaks on her nipples, and kissed him deeply. 

It was an impressive display, and he knew better than to tell her that he really wouldn’t have needed much at all, given that he’d spent every moment since Jim kissed him half hard.

He’d been unable to bring himself to any kind of completion; there was little enough privacy for the task, and when he so much as tried it the memory of Jim’s body and Jim’s lips muscled in on his ‘safe’ fantasies almost immediately.  Never- not even in the first flush of his attraction to the man- had he touched himself while thinking about Jim.  

When Jim had made his offer, Artie had practically flown out the door, desperate to relieve the pressure.  He needed to be able to think straight if he was going to puzzle out Jim’s new nocturnal habits, the question of why he was drugging himself in the first place, and how Jim could possibly be so unhappy with his lot as to need such a drug without Artie ever noticing it- _and_ shore up his defenses so he wouldn’t abuse said habits again.

But as the girl kissed him, it happened again.  All he could think about was how much better Jim tasted, how much warmer and wetter his mouth was.  Artie pulled away.  If masturbating with Jim in mind was too much of a liberty to take with their friendship- and Artie had believed it was ever since they met and, whatever else he did, he’d never crossed that line- then thinking of him while he had a woman in his arms was even worse.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “You’ll never know how sorry.  But I don’t have the time.”

She looked him over, sniffed, and flounced off- but she found someone else to occupy her soon enough.

“You’re friends with the man who came in the other day, aren’t you?”  Artie glanced up at the sound of a new woman’s voice.  A blonde was tending the bar and she was about Artie’s age.  She had a cynical twist to her mouth.  “Muscular?  Wears a blue suit?”

“Yes.  Why?” 

“Adelaide over there had her eye on him,” the woman said, pointing to a petite red-head with glittering eyes who currently had a cowpoke at each elbow.  “Didn’t have much more luck than poor Mellie did with you just now.”

“Just what are you suggesting?” Artie demanded, any threat in his tone marred by the fact that he hadn’t yet managed to take his eyes off Adelaide.  Despite the resolution he’d just made to himself, he thought about walking over there and starting up a conversation with her.  She looked like a handful- and kissing her might be almost like kissing Jim again.

“Nothing at all.  Another drink?” she offered.

“No,” Artie replied stiffly. He went back to the train instead. 

*   *   *

Artie would’ve reminded himself- not for the first time- what happened to the cat, except that he knew perfectly well that it wasn’t curiosity but something baser and less conscionable that drove him back to Jim’s bed that night.

He perched on the side of Jim’s bed as he slept and reached out, running a light fingertip along the curve from Jim’s temple to his chin.  He hoped Jim would stay asleep, or awaken and shake him off and end this madness before it got any worse.  He hoped Jim would do exactly what he did: open his eyes and smile that sweet gentle smile, and pull Artie flush against him, kissing him deeply.  He’d called it attraction mingled with friendship- he’d never called it fully fledged desire, let alone love, but as he melted against Jim’s chest he knew that was exactly what it was. 

Jim groaned and- tangling his fingers in Artie’s hair- flipped them over. 

Artie’s head rolled back and Jim’s lips found his throat.  Jim kissed him eagerly, but languidly, as if he had all the time in the world.  His mouth was so damn wet, so hot.  Artie felt Jim’s hand drag down his torso, striking sparks across his skin like a match.  How was he supposed to live without this ever again?

By reminding himself that none of it had ever been his to begin with. 

Artie galvanized and he caught Jim’s hand just before it reached below his waist. “Jim,” he whispered, half sure the sound of his voice when pull Jim out of it at last.

It didn’t.  “What is it?” Jim asked softly.

“If I ask you a strange question, will you promise to just answer?”

Jim’s brow furrowed, but he nodded.  He looked so boyish yet debauched, mouth reddened and swollen from Artie's kisses, expression innocent and confused.  Artie wanted to kiss him some more, but he pressed on with his question all same.

“Who am I?”

For a moment, Jim’s frown intensified, but then it cleared and he smiled almost shyly.  “Artemus Gordon,” he answered.  Artie had guessed from the way Jim touched him that Jim knew he had a man in his arms, but he hadn’t let himself think that it was him.  By the time Artie had recovered from his shock, Jim’s tongue was in his mouth and Artie was sucking on it hungrily. 

Half sobbing with effort of wrenching himself away, Artie asked, “And what am I to you?”

“Everything,” Jim breathed, like a prayer, and he peppered kisses across Artie’s face.  When he found no more questions forthcoming, Jim kissed Artie again and again, interchanging deep, long kisses that seemed to turn him inside out with soft light ones that ghosted over his lips like sighs.

Artie wanted to give himself up to it, but he knew he couldn’t.  If Jim wanted him- wanted this- he’d never given Artie the smallest indication of it in the waking world, and Artie had a duty to respect Jim’s choice.  There was something wrong with him; he wasn’t fully aware and he didn’t know what he was doing.  He’d been drugged, for God’s sake.  The fact that he was drugging himself didn’t make it any less an impairment.

He pulled away, but couldn't let go of Jim entirely however hard he tried.

“Go to sleep, Jim,” he whispered, praying to any god that might be out there- or interested- that his friend would obey. 

For once, his prayers were answered.

*   *   *

Artie turned into the something of wildcat himself in the next few days; he knew it, and he knew Jim had noticed and was baffled by it.  He was beyond restless; being almost totally unable to sleep was part of it, and knowing perfectly well that he’d had and thrown away an opportunity to have a woman in town didn’t help either.  But it wasn’t a woman he wanted.  Every waking moment, he wanted Jim to go back to sleep so he could touch him again.  

Sitting at the desk trying to write out a formula, Artie snarled and quashed just such a thought so violently that the pencil he had in his hand snapped in two.  He tossed it away in disgust and looked up to see Jim blinking at him over the top of the book he was reading. 

“Something wrong?”

“No,” Artie snapped.  “Yes.”  He could see it in his mind now- how this would play out day after day.  He wouldn’t be able to stay in his lab or his own bed, not knowing what he might find in Jim’s- and sooner or later he’d weaken further and then… He wasn’t sure how far it would go, but it would be too far.  It already was.  Seven years of telling himself it wasn’t worth the trouble and he’d become addicted in two nights.

Jim sat, looking all the more puzzled.

Artie went to the bedroom; a little digging in Jim’s drawer produced the bottle and Artie carried it into the parlor and set it with a click on the table next to Jim’s elbow.  Then he crossed his arms and backed off, watching Jim and waiting.

For a split second, Jim froze.  Then he closed the book, set it down softly, and gazed up at Artie impassively, one eyebrow elevated slightly.  “Yes?” he asked, politely. 

“I’m sorry, Jim.”  What frustration had been driving him a moment ago had slipped away all too soon.  He was angry at himself, not Jim, and he would need more than that if he wanted to pick a fight with his partner.  He decided to play it more carefully- emphasize that he wanted to help Jim rather than that he wanted to stop what Jim was doing.

He conveniently let himself forget how unresponsive Jim had been to his attempts to help thus far.

“I know I invaded your privacy just by noticing- but the fact is, I have noticed.  You’re drugging yourself.”

“What if I am?  It’s not as though you don’t try all your concoctions on yourself.”

“Fair point,” Artie admitted, more to pacify his partner- whose annoyance was clearly mounting despite his efforts to remain cool- than because he thought the comment had any real legitimacy.  After all, he didn’t do it night after night.  “But there’s no way of telling what kind of effect its long term use has while you’re awake.”

“Which might be a problem if we were working, but we aren’t.”  Jim stood abruptly, taking the tumbler of whiskey he’d had at his side with him as he went to stand by the window, looking out of it instead of at Artie.  When he spoke again his voice was strange, pleading.  “I’m not hurting anyone, Artie.”

 _I am_ , Artie thought, but he continued on the offensive.  “Not even yourself?”

Jim downed the rest of his whiskey in one swallow, as if bracing himself.  “I’m fine.”

Artie was reminded of the way Jim had reacted after the incident with McCoy, and the time in the hospital.  The words- and the tone in which Jim said them- were the same.  In fact, Artie could see Jim’s body settling into those same painful lines he’d started to see that night only a month ago.  “I don’t believe you,” Artie said simply.

The set of Jim’s shoulders grew more painful still and he didn’t respond.  He seemed to know he wasn’t making a good case for himself, but he was finally losing the will to pretend that nothing was wrong.

Artie was close to breaking him down, that was obvious- but he had to play the next part with care.  He wasn’t sure how angry Jim would be when he found out what Artie had let happen.  What Artie had done.  “You haven’t been entirely… quiet in your sleep.  In fact, sometimes you’ve seemed almost awake.  You’ve spoken to me.”

It was almost imperceptible, the way every muscle in Jim’s body tensed as if for a fight.  Artie might not have even noticed it if he hadn’t been watching the man so carefully, but he did notice and accordingly made sure there was a table between himself and his partner.     

“You kissed me.”

Jim’s free hand jerked as if he meant to reach for something- Artie, perhaps.  The other gripped his glass so tightly that his knuckles turned white.  “I must’ve mistaken you for someone else.”

A part of Artie was astonished that Jim hadn’t lashed out at him, that if anything Jim was acting as though _he_ was the guilty one.  Artie wanted to press that advantage, but even with the table between them he couldn’t bring himself to say what was on his tongue, _Your hand on that glass says different_.  This was a Jim Artie wasn’t sure he could control.  “That’s what I thought, too- at first.  But then I asked you who you thought I was.”

The glass in Jim’s hand shattered.  Jim glanced down at his bloodied hand as if he didn’t know where it had come from.  Worry for his partner immediately eclipsed any fear of him, and Artie found a cloth and pressed it to Jim’s fingers as quickly as he could, picking up shards of glass with his other hand.

Jim seemed insensible to the pain, merely staring at Artie’s face with a strange rapt expression, as if he were trying to memorize every line and curve.

“Let it be,” Jim whispered.  “Please.  You don’t have to know.”

Artie sighed.  “All right.”

Hope, wild and terrible, flared in Jim’s normally inexpressive eyes.  His hand was lax in Artie’s as Artie pressed the crimson stained cloth to his cut fingers.

“On one condition, I’ll leave it alone.”

Jim swallowed.  “What?”

“You swear to me that the moment we get another mission, you’ll stop taking that stuff.”  It was a compromise, of sorts.  The only way Artie could be absolutely sure he wouldn’t do what he’d done the last two nights again and again was if Jim stopped taking it immediately- or at least, he hoped so.  If it _wasn’t_ McCoy’s elixir that was causing Jim’s strange behavior in the night, if it was somehow just a fact of their life now, Artie didn’t know what he’d do. 

“I’d planned to.”

“And not start again.”

Jim jerked under his hands.  “Artie…”

Artie supposed it might seem like a tall order now, but he also knew addiction; he’d watched it destroy a lot of friends.  Addiction to Jim was going to destroy _him_ if he wasn’t careful.  If Jim really wanted Artie to believe that he didn’t have a problem, he’d have to do what Artie was going to do- stop.  For good.  “I’m not convinced that it’s safe in the kind of quantity you’ve been using it in and you’ve clearly formed a dependency.”

“It’s not like that, Artie.”

“Isn’t it?  Then tell me you’ve slept a night without it since you got it.”  Artie was going out a limb with that one, but it worked like a charm.

Jim opened his mouth and then closed it again, slowing folding in on himself before Artie’s very eyes.

“For God’s sake, Jim,” Artie hissed, shaking him.  “What _is_ that stuff?  What do you see?”

When Jim met Artie’s eyes, his expression couldn’t have been more terrified if Artie had been a dozen men with guns trained on him.  “Don’t ask me that.  Please.”

“All you have to do is say you’ll stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Then what is it and what do you _see_?”   

Jim collapsed against the window with Artie still pressing that cloth to his bloodied hand.  The man seemed somehow emptied, and his voice was horrible and hollow sounding.  “It’s what McCoy slipped me when I was trying to arrest him."

“I guessed that,” Artie said, though it was nice to have confirmation.  “But what does it do?  Does it make you dream?”  He knew that too- he even had an idea of what- but he needed to hear Jim say it for it to really coalesce in his mind. 

“Dream.  Yes.  Such dreams, Artie.  Did you know, other than the occasional memory of the war, I never do?  At least, not that I remember.  But these… I asked him about it after we caught him.  Asked him where he kept it.  He said that particular elixir gives the drinker visions of what they want most in all the world and he wasn’t lying.  These dreams… so vivid.  So real…  It was like I could…”

“What?”

“Really touch you.  I guess I was.”  He slammed his head against the wall and didn’t even wince, though Artie did when he heard the crack.  “Damn it all.”  He gave Artie a strange sidelong look; one full of challenge.  “I can’t give it up, Artie.  I can’t give _you_ up.”

“Jim.”  Artie swallowed.  “Are you really trying to tell me that what you want most in this world is to be my lover?” 

Odd, that- obvious as it was in hindsight- Artie didn’t fully process the fact that, though Jim hadn’t been entirely lucid the previous night and the night before that, the emotions he’d expressed were apparently genuine, until that moment.  He wanted more time.  Despite the fact that Jim’s mouth had so quickly become the only one he had any interest in kissing, Jim’s body the only one he had any interest in touching, all the reasons he’d ever given himself for not being with Jim in the first place plastered themselves all over his mind’s eye.  

He quickly decided that none of them mattered anymore; he’d seen the look on Jim’s face on men about to put their pistols in their mouths.

“Yes,” Jim whispered and Artie didn’t have any more time.

Artie supposed it would have to be enough that he did love Jim.  Even if he’d had no desire for the man whatsoever, he probably would’ve said the same thing.  “There’s more than one way for you to be with me, Jim.”

“How?”

Artie kept his hold on Jim's injured hand, and raised the other to cradle his cheek.  He leaned forward.  “By being with me.”

Jim jerked as if he’d been stuck and stumbled backwards and into a standing position before lurching away.  This time he was the one trying to put a piece of furniture between them, though Artie couldn’t figure out why. 

“Don’t mock me,” Jim breathed, resting shaking hands on the back of the chair he’d placed between himself and Artie. 

In his haste to get away from his partner, Jim had dropped the cloth wrapped around his cut fingers.  They continued to bleed.

Unsure what else to do, Artie put up his hands and tried to look as non-threatening as he could- the way he might if approaching an armed fugitive or a wounded animal.  The way Jim’s eyes flickered from Artie to the door and then back again, he looked uncommonly like both. 

“I’m not mocking you,” Artie soothed, and directed his gaze down to Jim’s crimson fingers.  “You’re bleeding all over the furniture, James, my boy.”  He injected every bit of ease and normalcy that he could into his voice.  “Let me take care of it.”

Those uncertain blue eyes darted down to his injured hand, clenching and unclenching it fitfully.  “Yes,” Jim whispered finally.  “All right.”

Even with permission secured, Artie picked his way toward his partner carefully and gently took his hand, wrapping it more tightly this time.  The work was straightforward, and- after years of patching Jim up- unconscious.  It gave Artie the chance to try to figure out when things had so completely slipped out of his control. 

 _Maybe the moment you decided to start a fight with Jim about something that was none of your damned business, Artemus my boy,_ Artie thought bitterly. 

He was careful not to let the twisted chuckle _that_ inspired pass his lips; it would only scare Jim all over again.  The way Artie saw it, this was his business and not his business at once.  If Jim ever slipped up because of this addiction, it was his life on the line as much as Jim’s- that made it Artie’s problem.  So did the knowledge that- if Jim was to be believed- he was doing all this to be with him, something Artie’s own little descent into madness proved they both wanted. 

It didn’t seem possible after everything Jim had said, but Artie wondered if he’d miscalculated.  Maybe Jim, like him, had considered taking their partnership to another level and concluded that it was too dangerous.  Maybe he only wanted to be with Artie in the less complicated realm of fantasy, where all the reasons they shouldn’t be together- from the possibility of discovery to the fear of what would happen if they ever truly had to choose between saving each other and saving the country- were but an insubstantial fog.

But no, Artie decided as he looked at Jim, that wasn’t where he’d miscalculated.  His partner seemed to be doing everything he could to keep quiet, but he gasped softly every time Artie’s fingers glided over his skin- exactly, Artie realized in a flash, as he had that night in the hospital.  Artie also realized that Jim hadn’t let Artie touch him casually since then. 

His mistake wasn’t in thinking Jim wanted him- it was in unilaterally deciding that they shouldn’t be together in the first place.  A dangerous life would be all the more dangerous if they were lovers; that was as true as it had ever been.  But obviously Artie hadn’t taken into account how deeply it might hurt Jim _not_ to be with him. 

Maybe remaining apart was the most dangerous choice of all.

Careful to be nonchalant, to make it seem accidental, Artie brought their bodies closer.  A turn of the hand holding Jim’s wrist revealed that his partner’s pulse was racing; the tiniest shift in their position confirmed that Jim was hard; and- when Artie finished the wrappings, tied them off, and gave his fingers the lightest squeeze as he released them- a single look at his face showed that Jim’s cheeks were flushed with want.  Artie couldn’t ask for better proof of his feelings.

Jim’s arm fell bonelessly to his side, as if he was so captured by Artie’s gaze he’d forgotten he even had an arm. 

One of Artie’s hands found Jim’s waist and he drew his friend to him gently.  Jim went, as if spellbound, without a fight; Jim’s hips rocked unconsciously as the swell of his arousal bumped against Artie’s thigh.  Artie raised his other hand to Jim’s face, tracing those chiseled lines for the first time with Jim awake and lucid.  “Let me take care of this, too,” he whispered.

But Jim’s eyes fell instead to the place their bodies met, and he didn’t seem to have heard.  Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out with his good hand and brushed his knuckles along the line of Artie’s hip and side until it came to rest on the small of Artie’s back, where Jim pressed a shaking palm.  The sudden fullness of this contact seemed to finally startle him out of his reverie.  

He shuddered, and his eyes darkened almost unrecognizably and he crushed them together, fierce and desperate in a way he hadn’t been before.  Artie hadn’t realized there was a desk just behind him until Jim was lifting him up and sitting him on it. 

Artie was shocked anew at how naturally they fit together.  Jim slipped between his legs without any need to negotiate the movement and when Artie opened his mouth for Jim the kiss was sloppy, all tongue and teeth and need- but that too was perfect.  This was James West without the detachment and finesse that ruled his other encounters, and Artie found it intoxicating to be one who could drive him to this.  When Jim broke the kiss all too soon, Artie fairly sobbed. 

If he’d thought what they’d shared before was sweet- this was _incredible_.  Jim pressed burning lips to his jaw, his neck, the hollow of his throat, and ground against him.  Behind Artie’s back, Jim’s fingers were clenching and unclenching again. 

When Jim finally pulled back, it was as though he had to tear his lips from Artie’s skin.  “Why?” he asked, in a gravelly, broken voice.  “Why are you doing this?”  His eyes snapped up to Artie’s and they looked… wrong.  Inhuman.  “Why are you letting me touch you?”

“I _want_ you to touch me.”

“Liar,” Jim hissed, eyes suddenly blazing.  His hand slid up, fingers tangling in Artie’s hair, hurting when he clenched his fist yet again.  He kissed Artie wetly, savagely.  “Liar.”

“Jim-”

Just as abruptly, Jim threw Artie back and darted away, pressing himself up against a wall to get away from him.  “Don’t you see what you do to me?” he breathed in a sick, horrified voice.  “I can’t-” Jim’s eyes widened and he cut himself off, and then he was moving again.  Artie must have figured out where Jim was going a second before Jim himself did, otherwise he would never have made it to the door first.

Even so, it wasn’t something Artie would’ve thought himself capable of; Jim was faster than he was, and closer to the door.  But maybe desperation gave him unusual strength.  Artie wasn’t sure how or why, but part of him was mortally convinced that if Jim walked- or more likely ran- out that door he’d never see him again.  Artie pressed himself to the door.  Jim slammed against it only moments later, making a strange animal whine as he found Artie’s hand already gripping the doorknob and holding it stubbornly shut.

“Let me go.”  Jim sounded miserable enough that Artie wanted to, but he stood firm.  “Please.  _Please._   You have to let me go.”

“Why?” Artie asked, hoping he still had a chance to talk Jim down.  It would help, he thought, more than a little wryly, if he knew what on earth he was talking Jim down _from_ , but every question he asked, every action he took, seemed to muddle things further instead of the other way around.  Clearly there was more to this than he’d ever suspected- and it had been complicated enough, damn it.

“Because I’ll-” Jim cut himself off with a growl.  “I thought I could control it.  I have for so long.  But then I touched you and I…  _Please_ , Artie.  I don’t know _what_ I’ll do.”  A trembling hand alighted on Artie’s chest.  “Don’t let me hurt you.”

Jim’s pleading tone was impossible to simply ignore, so Artie promised, “I won’t.”  Jim seemed somewhat soothed, so Artie got a little closer.  “Why don’t you believe me?”

“About what?”  Jim looked confused, uncertain.

“That I want you too.”

Artie was obviously beginning to get a grip on Jim’s trouble, because the effect on his partner was instantaneous.  He jerked back, staring at Artie as if he was some kind of poisonous snake.  No, it most definitely wasn’t that Jim didn’t want to be with him- he wanted that very much indeed- it was that Jim didn’t believe Artie wanted _him_. 

 _Much good knowing that does_ , Artie thought in frustration. Jim clearly didn’t just doubt that Artie felt that way about him- he thought it was utterly impossible.  So impossible that the only thing he seemed able to conclude was that Artie was saying that he did only so he could take it away from him again later. 

Artie was enough of a scientist to follow the evidence where it led him, but that didn’t make it any more comprehensible to him.  He could easily accept that hiding his true feelings from Jim had been an error from the start and move forward- but he simply couldn’t believe that after so many years of partnership his friend didn’t know that even if he didn’t return Jim’s feelings, Artie would never torture him like that.  _Never_.

“Because I do, James.  I swear to God I do.” 

Artie wondered if it had been foolishness on his part that one problem it had never occurred to him he might face when it came to… romancing Jim was that the man wouldn’t believe he was genuine.  What reason could Jim have to doubt how much he meant to Artie?  It had so often seemed painfully obvious over the years. 

Artie swallowed and plowed on.  He hadn’t planned to say it like this- hadn’t, in all honesty, planned to say it at all- but since not saying things had gone _so_ well for him thus far… “I love you.”

Jim flinched as though Artie had come at him brandishing a red-hot poker freshly pulled out of a fireplace.  “Don’t say that,” he whispered.

“But I do.  Tell me how I can prove it to you.  I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Artie wasn’t accustomed to seeing much in Jim’s eyes unless he looked carefully for it.  Right now, though, his face was like an open book.  A tiny fissure of hope seemed to claw its way out of the bleakness in Jim’s eyes, and the tiniest spark of the happiness Artie had seen in him when Jim thought that he was dreaming appeared. 

Jim’s hand trembled as if it itched to touch Artie, and then closed into a fist all over again.  Both happiness and hope fizzled abruptly out, leaving nothingness behind.  Fists clenched tight, Jim pulled himself upright. 

“If you cared for me at all,” he said through gritted teeth.  “You’d let me go.” 

This ultimatum set, he attempted to forcibly remove Artie from the doorway.

Still convinced that keeping Jim on the train and making him talk it out was the only way to get through to him, Artie panicked a little. 

When Jim had begged Artie not to let him hurt him, Artie’s promise had been genuine.  He could name six ways he could completely incapacitate his partner right there.  Simply as a precaution after the years, he’d gone out of his way to make sure that he was never more than a step away from multiple non-lethal weapons, and at least one lethal one.  But Artie was shy of drugging his partner with some mystery potion already in his system and he wouldn’t try it unless he’d exhausted all other options- which put him in a difficult position.  Unarmed, there was no doubt that Jim was both the stronger and the more skilled of the two of them.

Panic or no panic, Artie surprised himself when he slapped Jim across the face.  Jim staggered back, head down, and when he looked up again he had the most extraordinary look on his face.  He was smiling.

It wasn’t a pleasant smile, or even a pleased one.  More than anything, it was dogged, as if he’d finally gotten a reaction out of Artie that he’d expected and was determined to enjoy it.

“ _There_ you are,” Jim growled, putting his hands up.  “Let me _see_ it.”

Artie put himself on his guard, aware that he was in a terrible position for a fight.  He couldn’t retreat, or move at all unless with he was willing to abandon the door. 

He tried to steady his breathing- no easy task for a man possibly about to genuinely fight his dearest and far better accomplished friend- and managed it somewhat. 

“See what, Jim?” he asked as conversationally as he could.

Jim’s mouth curled into a snarl.  “How much you hate me,” he replied, and tried to punch him.  Artie blocked it through his astonishment, barely- but he had a firm enough understanding of his own skills to know that he shouldn’t have managed even that.

Either Jim was toying with him, encouraging him to overestimate his rather meager abilities and make a mistake, or- more likely, given the crazed and not at all calculating look in Jim’s eyes- Jim was trying to provoke him into a fight without hurting him.  When Artie used the hole in Jim’s guard to punch him in the face and the other man didn’t even try to block it, it certainly suggested the latter. 

Jim stumbled back again, now with a bloodied lip.  Breathing heavily, he ran his good hand sensuously over his mouth, more as though he’d been kissed than hit, and his lips spread into that same horrible smile again. 

The best way to be sure was to do something Jim didn’t expect- so Artie let him connect the next time.  Sure enough, it was a gut punch- and barely more painful than Jim usually provided in a lesson whilst trying to make a point.  It was more a knee-jerk reaction- one that had served Artie well over the years- than a calculated decision to overreact, buckle over and fall; but it couldn’t have worked better if he’d planned it.

Jim’s arms were suddenly wrapped around him, his body feverishly hot, his hands everywhere, his mouth pressing frantically against Artie’s head.  “Why won’t you fight me?” he moaned.  “You know what I want.”  He pressed against Artie, and if Artie hadn’t run out of surprise at this point he would’ve been to find Jim still hard.  “I’ve ruined everything.  Make me pay for it.”

Artie simply rested for a moment.  Frenzied and warped as it was, Jim’s embrace was still oddly pleasant.  And it was clear that he didn’t want to hurt Artie; rather, he wanted Artie to hurt him.

Taking a breath, he jerked out of Jim’s arms and swept a foot under his legs.

Jim fell flat on his back, but Artie didn’t pause to examine his handiwork, he just grabbed for the tranquilizer gun he’d finished perfecting only a few nights ago.  He hadn’t expected this kind of field test, but he couldn’t think of any other options.  And as for the risk of drugging Jim, at this point it seemed riskier _not_ to drug him.

The biggest issue was that Artie hadn’t briefed Jim on this particular invention, so it would look to him simply as though Artie was pulling a gun on him.  But when Jim saw him, for the split second that he did before Artie pulled the trigger, he simply gave Artie a sad but somehow comforting little smile, as if he wanted to encourage him, and nodded.

Artie would’ve been disturbed, but at this point he honestly didn’t have the energy.  He waited for Jim to pass out, patted his partner’s foot, and went off to find something to tie him up with.

*   *   *

It took Jim about an hour to come to- an hour Artie spent most productively.

Though he didn’t like the idea, Artie had eventually decided to drag Jim into the holding cell.  He’d seen Jim tied to too many chairs over the years to play it any other way: it usually ended badly for the chair and even worse for the person who tied him to it. 

Checking Jim for the tools he usually used to escape captors, Artie supposed it was a mercy that Jim didn’t keep most of them on his person while aboard the train- what few he did, Artie relieved him of.  He also removed the slender lock pick carefully hidden under one of the boards in the cell, which he’d placed there several years ago after the train was hijacked and he and Jim were thrown in their own cell. 

Then, for good measure, he tied Jim’s hands to the bars so the man would have to face him once he awoke.

Once he was finished with these preparations, he pulled up a chair and sat down to wait for Jim to wake up.  He took out a book, wanting to appear at ease though in reality he was anything but.  He didn’t even process a word; he merely thought and rethought what he planned to do.  He hated the idea that had come to him as he dragged Jim to the cell, and he planned to give his partner every opportunity to avoid it- but the more he reflected on Jim’s behavior the more certain he was that it would be unavoidable in the end.

During one of their furloughs, Artie had attended a medical conference.  He had asked one of the physicians he met there to give him a primer course on hypnosis. 

In addition to the usual methods, the man had been experimenting with putting people in a kind of chemically induced trance.  Just like a hypnotized person, they were susceptible to suggestion and able to remember things that they couldn’t in a waking state- but the drug bypassed the parts of the mind that could fight hypnosis completely.  Artie had gotten a sample, interested in studying it further.  He’d never expected to use it like this- he wanted Jim to talk to him willingly, and he didn’t want to mix even _more_ drugs in Jim’s system- but if he was going to save their partnership he’d have to get the truth somehow, and he didn’t think he could hypnotize Jim in the usual way.

Jim jerked when he woke up and paled when he saw his bound hands.  He looked at Artie and swallowed heavily.  “Are you… are you going to let me go?”

“That depends,” Artie returned, as pleasantly as he could.  He set his book on the floor beside him.  “Are you going to talk rationally?”

His partner swallowed again, twisting his hands in their bonds.

More than anything else- more even than the bizarre scene they’d last enacted- the fact that Jim looked genuinely afraid of him decided Artie.  He might not like it- it might not be right- but he had to find out what had gone so wrong between them.  By any means necessary.  “I don’t hate you, Jim.  I’d like for you to get that through your head.”

Jim didn’t speak, didn’t call Artie a liar again, but it was plain from his expression that this was exactly what he thought.

Artie knew from personal experience how difficult it could be to talk a man out of something he truly believed.  It usually helped if the man didn’t _want_ to believe it, if Artie could substitute for him a truth he liked better. 

But though Artie’s reason told him Jim should want to believe that Artie didn’t hate him, it wasn’t working- so Artie had to tell him a different story.  One both of them should find distasteful- but if Jim could suddenly no longer accept that Artie cared about him, he would have to try something else. 

“I don’t hate you,” he said again.  “I just feel sorry for you.”

Jim shuddered.  And then, amazingly, he relaxed.  He still looked like he was going to be sick, but he relaxed all the same.  Artie felt a little like he was going to be sick himself, that _this_ was what Jim was willing to believe of him after all their years together.

“You’re sick, Jim,” Artie told him softly.  “You know that, don’t you?” 

His partner nodded miserably, his eyes downcast.

“And don’t you know that I’d never blame you for something that you couldn’t control?  Don’t you trust me that much?”

Artie thought Jim would stay quiet again, but instead his whispered, “I want to.”

“Good.”  Artie leaned toward him, but not close enough for Jim to reach him if he tried any sudden moves.  “That’s good.  If you’ll just trust me again, I can help you.”

“How could you possibly help me?”

“I can fix you.”  Artie thought that he might be sick yet.  He had met a few people who thought they could ‘fix’ inverts, usually hanging around theaters.  He’d seen too many friends brought to tears by strangers insisting they could cure them to like the taste of those words in his mouth.  But Jim- dear God in heaven- Jim was looking at him with such hope in his eyes, like this was the most wonderful offer he could imagine getting.  “Just like I fix everything else.  You want that, don’t you?  You want me to make it so we can be friends again.”

“Yes, Artie,” Jim sighed, making it sound like a prayer.  “Yes, I want that.”

“All right,” Artie said, forcing a gentle smile onto his face.  “All you have to do is drink this and then listen to what I say.”

He handed over a small dose of the drug, half expecting Jim to knock it out his hands or try to get away.  Whatever Jim said, the last thing Artie expected was for Jim to take it from him quickly, almost fumbling it in his rush to drink.  He wiped his mouth when he was finished, mumbling, “Artie, I-” and staring at the ground bleakly.

“Hush, Jim,” Artie whispered.  “It’ll be over soon.”

And it was.  Jim collapsed against the bars as if he’d lost consciousness, but when Artie asked Jim if he could hear him, Jim answered easily, in a soft, somehow boyish voice.  Artie squeezed his partner’s cut hand, lightly enough not to restart the bleeding, but firmly enough to hurt.  Jim didn’t flinch.  It wasn’t indisputable proof that he wasn’t faking it, but it was good enough.  And if Artie got real answers, he almost didn’t care one way or the other.

“Jim, I want you to think back for me, all right?  It’s a little over an hour ago and I’m telling you that we can be together.  Picture it for me.”

His partner nodded, forehead creasing, face paling.

“Picture it for me, don’t relive it.  Imagine that you’re standing outside yourself, watching what you do as you would another person.  You know what you’re feeling, but you don’t feel it.  Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” Jim murmured.

“All right.  You don’t believe what I’m telling you.  Why not?”

“Because that’s impossible.”

“You’re sure about that.  _Absolutely_ sure?”

“Yes.”

Jim was answering all of his questions quickly and easily, but Artie still felt rather as though he was running into a brick wall.  He didn’t know how to get to the answers he really needed.  “Think back further, Jim.  Think of the first time you found yourself attracted to me.  When was that?”

“When I met you.  You weren’t like anyone I ever met before.”

Artie flushed a little and took a breath to calm himself.  “Why didn’t you tell me, Jim?”

Jim shrugged, an awkward motion in his current slumped position.  “It’s not always a great idea, propositioning a man.  Even an actor.”

Unable to help it, Artie chuckled softly, but the more he thought about Jim’s words and behavior earlier, the less he felt like laughing.  “You were afraid I’d hate you if you did?”

“No,” Jim replied, surprising Artie.  “Not _you_.  But if you weren’t interested, it’d change things, no matter how kind you were about it.  And if you _were_ interested, that would change things too.  And maybe not for the better.  You were my best friend.  I didn’t want to throw that away.”

“That’s okay,” Artie told him softly.  He’d thought the exact same thing, after all.  “So when did all that change?”

Jim shrugged again.  “Slowly, I guess.  I didn’t notice it at first.”

“Notice what?”

“That I was falling in love with you.  By the time I did, I was stuck.  Too comfortable- too happy- with how things were to change it, but I wanted to be with you so much.  And yet, one misstep and I could lose everything.  I’m not used to being scared like that, so I tried to hide it, tried to forget about it.  But that didn’t make me happy either.  I didn’t want to lose what we had, but it wasn’t enough for me anymore.”

“And that’s where McCoy’s drug came in?”

“Yes.  I took a drink and then it was like I… woke up.  I don’t know where I was- it didn’t really seem to matter.  I was with you, and you were holding me so tight.  You told me you loved me and you kissed me and there was no reason not to believe it was true.”

“And it was the same every time you took it after that?”   

“Yes.”  Jim sighed.  “Couldn’t give it up.”  He winced as if struck.  “Sorry, Artie.”

“Remember what I said, Jim,” Artie corrected, struggling to keep his voice even.  “You know what you felt but you don’t feel it, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s an hour ago again.  You’re scared of me, but I don’t think it’s the kind of fear you just told me about.  That isn’t you afraid that our friendship won’t be what it was because I know how you feel.  That’s you truly frightened of me.  What are you afraid I’ll do?”

“Hurt me.  Turn me in.  Maybe kill me.”

“Jim-” Artie hissed, but he couldn’t form a question, and apparently Jim wasn’t done answering the last one.

“I wouldn’t have minded- I thought about doing it often enough myself- except when I thought about looking into your eyes and seeing that you really didn’t care about me at all because of one mistake… because I didn’t hide it well enough… I didn’t want that to be the last thing I saw.”

“What one mistake, Jim?”

“Falling for you.  Wanting you.  Thinking about you… that way.”

Artie took a breath that didn’t seem to come anywhere near filling his lungs, and plunged on.  “But in the beginning you didn’t feel that way.  You thought I might let you down gently and then things would be awkward between us- but you didn’t think I’d ever hurt you.  Somewhere along the way, your assumptions of how I’d react if I found out changed, didn’t they?”

“I guess so.”

Artie struggled to keep a frustrated noise from bubbling up.  “I’d hate to think that you fell in love with me and _that_ made you believe I’d turn on you like that.  Please tell me you know me better than that!”

Jim’s eyebrows drew together.  “I- I don’t-”

“Hush, Jim,” Artie cut him off, sensing a crisis and maybe an answer he didn’t want to hear.  “It’s all right.  Just- was there a moment when… one assumption turned into the other?”

“Yes.”

“ _One_ moment?”

“Yes.”

Artie let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, feeling unspeakably relieved.  “Tell me about it, Jim.  When did it happen?  When did you first look at me, want me, and think that I could only hate you if I ever knew how you felt?”

“You rescued me from Loveless’ hospital.  You were rubbing my wrists, touching me.  It felt so good.   I didn’t want you to stop- I never do- but that time it was like a block of ice in my stomach.  If I so much as looked at you too long, you could find me out.  You’re so smart- I couldn’t hope to fool you for long, but I had to try.  As long as I could manage it, you’d be my friend, but if I ever lost control…”

“And so you began to be afraid of me.”

“Yes.” 

Artie understood Jim’s laugh behind McCoy’s wagon now.  He’d dreamed of being with Artie, awoke again to a world where he believed it impossible, and been immediately subjected to Artie telling him that he didn’t need to hide things from him- when in Jim’s mind his very _life_ depended on his hiding things from Artie.

In fact, everything was beginning to make sense now.  The way Jim moved, the way he looked at Artie- even his recent carelessness in the field came into new focus. 

He’d been hiding how he felt for as long as Artie had- but like an itch he couldn’t scratch those feelings must have become more and more difficult to ignore after they became a hatchet floating over his head just waiting to come plunging down.

And Artie had been right in so many thoughts that he’d tried to dismiss over the past month.  Jim _had_ been in pain, just not of the physical variety.  And it might’ve been mostly inadvertent- but Jim _had_ been trying get himself killed.  He must’ve preferred to think of a stranger doing it than Artie.

“But _why_ , Jim?  It’s not as though I could really hurt you.”

“Yes, you could.  You could’ve killed me while I was unconscious.  You could’ve killed me before.  You _had_ the gun.  You could kill me now.  I might be better in a fight, but we both know that if you truly wanted me dead, I’d be dead.” 

This dispassionate analysis made Artie feel horribly cold, and he wanted to protest even though he knew Jim was quite right.  “But before that we were fighting.  Your way.” 

“But I’d never hurt you, Artie.”

The coldness felt like that block of ice Jim spoke of.  Artie thought he might still be sick yet.  “Not even to save your own life?”

“If it was really me or you?  _Never_.”

Artie pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping it would clear his mind.  It didn’t.  “All right, Jim,” he said.  “But focus on that night.  What did I do?  Did I… say anything?”

“No.”

“Did someone else?”

“Yes.”

And then Artie discovered that he was horribly, incurably dense.  Jim was completely wrong about how clever he was.  He was a fool.  Jim had been at Doctor Loveless’ tender mercies.  He’d been stupid not to try harder, push harder, to find out what he’d done to Jim back then- stupid not to make the connection until now.  And there was one way he could so easily have done it- just the way Artie was doing it now.  “Do you know what I’ve given you?”

“Some kind of drug that allows you to access my subconscious mind.”

“Has anyone else given it to you?” Artie asked.

And he got the answer he was… not hoping for, but expecting.  “I think Doctor Loveless slipped me some.  I felt the same way.”

“And you remember what he told you now?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me… he asked me what I wanted most in all the world.  I told him it was to be with you.  I had to, it was like I couldn’t stop myself- and yet I’d never admitted just how much I wanted it, not even in my own mind.  And then he told me it was never going to happen.  He told me what I felt was wrong, sick.  You’d know that and you’d hate me for it.  You wouldn’t want me in your life.  You’d turn me in, maybe even kill me yourself.”

“And you believed it?”  This time it was Artie’s hands clenching into fists, but he buried his anger efficiently and kept his voice calm.

“I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it.  It was like it… took root.  Poisoned everything.”

“Oh, Jim,” Artie sighed.  “I’m so sorry.  So sorry I didn’t find this sooner.”

Jim sat, expression sorrowful and puzzled.  He didn’t seem to know what to do now that Artie hadn’t asked a question.

And Artie had one more- a little innocent curiosity he wanted to assuage.  “Loveless had four men.  While you were under, one of them died.  Do you know what happened?”

“One of them didn’t like the idea of leaving without roughing me up first because- well, you can guess why.  Loveless seemed to agree.  He thought you’d be less likely to question what he’d done if you saw I’d been tortured.  But then you came and Loveless said they were leaving and that man argued and-” 

“Loveless doesn’t like being argued with,” Artie finished for him.

“Yeah.”  Jim almost smiled.

“All right, Jim,” Artie said, smiling back.  “Forget everything he told you.  Stop believing it.” 

Artie wanted to tell Jim that he could never hate him- that he loved him- so he’d believe it as deeply and steadfastly as he had just recently believed the opposite- but he knew that Jim had had his privacy invaded enough. 

“Go back to believing whatever you believed and feeling whatever you felt before he got his hands on you.”  There was one thing Artie wouldn’t resist changing, though.  “And forget what I said to you when you woke up- about fixing you.  When you come out of this trance and wake up, I want you to think you’re just waking up from me knocking you out.”

*   *   *

Jim jerked awake the same way he had before, but he looked substantially less horrified.  He just looked at Artie with eyes that were wary but not frightened and murmured his name.  “What’s going on?” he asked. 

“What does it look like?” Artie inquired instead of answering.

“I’m tied up,” Jim replied.  In an unconscious echo of his words upon waking before, he asked, “Are you going to let me go?”

As he had then, Artie returned with, “That depends.  Are you going to talk rationally?”

Jim’s brow furrowed, as if the question puzzled him.  “I think so,” he said.  “I- I feel strange.”  He gave Artie a look of mingled annoyance and betrayal, but it was colored more by amusement than real anger.  “You shot me.”

“I _tranquilized_ you, which is an entirely different matter.  And _you_ \- if you recall- provoked me to it.”

For a moment, Jim looked as though he didn’t recall anything of the kind, but slowly his look of confusion cleared, though he still looked vaguely disturbed.  “I guess I did.  I was… scared, so I wanted to start a fight.  I do that- don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Artie smiled.  The joke was a relatively weak one, but Artie found the fact that Jim was making jokes deeply heartening.  “You were scared of me,” he prompted, kneeling in front of Jim.

“Yes,” Jim admitted.  “But maybe more so of me.”

That surprised Artie.  “Why?”

Jim pressed his forehead against the bars, seeming to have to strain to remember.  “I was…” he trailed off.  Artie was close enough that if Jim raised his fingers he could brush them over Artie’s lips, and he did.  “Was that real?”  Artie nodded, feeling Jim’s fingertips caress his face.  “It’s so hard to tell these days.  I felt so much… need.  I was afraid I’d try to… force myself on you.”

Artie released rattling breath.  As frightened and angry and confused as he’d been, Jim’s primary concern really had been keeping himself from hurting Artie.  If he’d gotten through the previous interview without crying, Artie hadn’t expected to mist up now- but he did.

Jim- having not been party to Artie’s little epiphany- obviously didn’t expect Artie to untie him after such a statement, and when this was done he eyed his unbound hands as though he wasn’t sure what to do with them. 

Artie knew exactly what to do with them and once he’d unlocked the door he reached out, took the uninjured one, and brought it to his lips, kissing the back.

When next he met Jim’s eyes, they were warm and vaguely glazed over.

“You must still be a little confused, Jim,” Artie told him, nuzzling his knuckles so Jim would see exactly how unintimidated he was.  “Because I think you know that that wasn’t what was happening at all.”

Jim’s mouth quirked.  “You certainly seemed to enjoy it.  Before I got angry, I mean.  But I just- I couldn’t believe you wanted me.  You never seemed to before.”

“Then that was my mistake, Jim.”

The other corner of Jim’s mouth elevated, forming a genuine smile, but it seemed to be more in response to the wry fondness in Artie’s tone than his actual words.  “I felt so confused, Artie.  I don’t even know why.  I was just so sure that you had to be lying.”

“Well, since that was at least partially my fault, let me clarify a few things.”  He didn’t want to let go of Jim’s hand, so he didn’t.  He kissed his knuckles.  “I love you, James West- and I’m fairly certain you love me too.  You’re my dearest friend, but I would very much like for you to be more than that.  I can’t promise that it won’t change things.  I can’t even promise that we won’t just hurt each other even more than we have.  But I also think we could make each other very happy.  And I’m willing to take the chance if you are.”

Jim removed his hand from Artie’s grip, but only to lay it, trembling faintly, on Artie’s cheek.  He leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, eyes drifting closed.  “Yes,” Jim breathed.  “Oh yes.”

Artie felt himself smiling back.  “You really thought I wouldn’t want this?”

Jim shrugged.  “What would _you_ want with someone like me?”

Raising his own hand to mirror Jim’s on his cheek, Artie chuckled, enjoying the feel of Jim’s stubble on his palm.  “It’s funny, James.  I was thinking the same thing about you wanting me.”

Eyes heating suddenly, Jim closed the distance between them and sealed their mouths together.  It was a perfect combination of the two different ways he’d kissed Artie before.  He devoured Artie’s mouth with lips and tongue, groaning with pleasure when Artie kissed him back just as furiously.  But as hungry and fierce as it was, the kiss had lost its aftertaste of misery. 

It tasted, instead, like homecoming. 

Artie wasn’t quite sure who moved first, but he found himself lying on the floor with one of Jim’s hands behind his head to cushion it from the hard wood floor and Jim’s body draped over his.  A single move of Jim’s hips brought his groin flush with Artie’s, and they both groaned at the unexpected friction.

“I want you so much,” Artie breathed when Jim’s mouth left his to press against his jaw.  He was, frankly, a little amazed at how much.  Odd, that he hadn’t truly been aware of how much he’d repressed until he stopped.  “I want you in my bed.” 

Jim looked up at Artie, eying him as though he wasn’t sure if this was merely a comment, or a directive.  And he rolled his hips against Artie’s, saying without a word: _You really want to move right now?_

Artie laughed, half in amusement at Jim’s annoyed expression, and half in overwhelming relief to find that their ability to understand each other without speaking- lately missing- was not gone.  “And in _your_ bed,” he whispered, running his fingers through Jim’s hair.  “And on the couch.  And on the desk.  And on the pool table if we ever set it back up.  And right here.”

He felt Jim’s smile on his skin, felt the puff of air as he chuckled quietly.  “You shouldn’t talk like that to me.”  The words might have troubled Artie, echoes as they were of some of the things Jim had said earlier, if Jim hadn’t punctuated them with open-mouthed kisses to his throat.

“Why not?”

Jim’s hips rocked, sending sparks of pleasure through Artie.  “Because I’m already on the edge.”  He sucked at Artie’s pulse point.  “God, Artie- just touching you.  I haven’t felt this way since I was kid.  Maybe not even then.”

“Then,” Artie murmured, carding his fingers through Jim’s hair.  “I definitely shouldn’t do this.”  He wrapped a leg around Jim and flipped them, landing on top of Jim and rubbing against him.

Jim panted, his head lolling back.  “I don’t want to go too fast for you.”

“That’s considerate of you, James.”  Artie punctuated each word by kissing Jim’s face- his nose, his forehead, his cheeks, his brows, his eyelids, his chin, his mouth…  “But seven years is easily the longest courtship I ever had.  I’d like to skip to the fun part, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” Jim whispered, between lingering kisses.  “I just wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize the duration of the fun part.  On a long term basis, I mean.”

“Well, Jim, I’ve noted a certain correlation between the length of the courtship and that of the ensuing relationship.”  Nothing but the breathlessness in Artie’s voice, the way once he started kissing Jim he couldn’t seem to stop, and the way they both rubbed against each other differentiated it from a thousand teasing conversations they’d had in the past.  Artie found that extraordinarily arousing.  “It seems to me that- given my usual ratios- this one could easily last the rest of our lives.  If, again, you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” Jim repeated, and Artie kissed him.  

Artie’s world narrowed to the warm slide of tongues and the slow caress of Jim’s hands over his shoulder blades as they rocked against each other.  He wasn’t sure when the lazy exchange of kisses became hurried and desperate, when the feel of Jim’s lips became more tempting than air and he broke away only when he was certain he would stifle otherwise.  He wasn’t sure when the rocking became hungry, animal, or when the need to have the hard length of Jim’s cock grinding against his own overrode nearly every other thought in his head.  But it happened.

Jim tore his mouth away, gasping for breath.  “I’m so close, Artie.”

“I am too, love,” Artie replied, his own voice rough and husky.

Jim groaned deeply, pressing his face to Artie’s and moving even more frantically beneath him.  “Call me that again.”

It took Artie moment to realize what Jim was talking about; his body was sparking distractingly with pleasure.  When he did, Artie felt something warm filling his chest that felt almost better than the friction of Jim rubbing against him.  “Love,” he whispered, and kissed Jim’s temple. 

Jim groaned again and shut his eyes tightly, jerking against Artie one last time before he came.  It was the way Jim’s face looked more than anything that took Artie over the edge after him.

Both were gasping and trembling for a long time, but Artie recovered first, rolling off his partner.  Jim made a quiet, dissatisfied noise and gripped Artie’s wrist, so he didn’t move away.  He propped himself up on his elbow and lay on his side, as much of him pressed to Jim as he could manage.  When Jim relaxed his grip on Artie’s wrist, Artie turned his hand to entwine their fingers together where they rested on Jim’s chest.

“I haven’t done _that_ in a long a time,” Jim admitted, a little sheepishly.

“Neither have I,” Artie whispered, and raised their joined hands to kiss the back of Jim’s, something he intended to make a habit of.  “But I loved it.”

Jim smiled, watching Artie’s lips on his skin with a kind of awe that was both flattering and disturbing.  Artie hadn’t been lying when he said he thought it was possible that they’d just hurt each other even more now.  He still shuddered to think of Jim’s reaction to his ‘death’ at the hands of the pistoleros- would it be worse now?  Was that even possible?  “You know, Artie,” Jim was saying.  “Even in my best dreams it was hanging over me- this certainty that I’d never be happy.”

Artie suppressed a sigh.  He’d have something else to shudder about the next time he couldn’t sleep- but right now it was hard to imagine anything being less than perfect, so he smiled at Jim and kissed his knuckles again.  “Why do you suppose that should be?”

Raising his free hand and drawing Artie to him, Jim murmured, “You know, suddenly I can’t think of a single reason,” and kissed him.

Kissing Jim back, it was easy to forget everything else.

*   *   *

Artie was just making real headway in the tranquilizer gun he was making for Jim as an apology for shooting him with one when Jim called out to him from the bedroom.  “About McCoy’s potion.  Do you still want me to get rid of it?”

Unconsciously, Artie’s eyes flicked to the vial in question. 

In the three days since he’d confronted Jim about it, it had sat innocently in his lab where he’d put it for safekeeping, unused and unnoticed.

And un _seen_ , for the most part.  Jim had proclaimed no doubt that Richmond would have them back in the field before they knew it, and he insisted that Artie waste no more of the time they had than absolutely necessary with work.  Though Artie was far from sorry about the new… arrangements, he knew that his projects were suffering.  Jim wanted to spend nearly every waking moment with him- and when he slept, Artie did too.

Artie shrugged before remembering that Jim couldn’t see him. 

He set down the gun, picked up the vial, and headed toward the bedroom saying, “I still feel that I should study the side effects, and I can’t say that I’m overjoyed with the idea of you using it- but I’m more disposed to like it than I was before.”  He leaned in the doorway, enjoying the tableau that Jim created lying naked in Artie’s bed.  “After all, it brought me you.” 

“It did, didn’t it?” Jim returned, looking unaccountably like a cat licking the last bright feathers of some poor bird off his chops.  “Toss it here, would you?”  Artie did so, and Jim caught the bottle one-handed, eyeing it fondly.  “I guess it works even better than advertized then, doesn’t it?”  He tossed it out the open window without another thought.  “Now come back to bed, love.”

“It’s early, Jim,” Artie protested.  The sun had only just gone down.  “I’ve got things to do.”

“Yes, you do.  Me.”

Artie’s eyes snapped his partner, who had his arms open and for the first time in far too long looked absolutely certain that he was going to get exactly what he wanted. 

He couldn’t very well refuse _that_ , could he? 


End file.
